


Count Our Blessings

by cywscross



Series: Tumblr Prompts 2016 [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coma, Established Relationship, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Mates, Patient Stiles Stilinski, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 16:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6123016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/cywscross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days are better.  Some days are worse.  Peter cherishes them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Count Our Blessings

**Author's Note:**

> _Anonymous said: Hey cross! Could you write a drabble based on these lyrics? 'The last thing I heard, was you whispering goodbye/and then I heard you flatline' Preferably with Stiles!whump and only if you have the time! :D_  
> 
> Lol I haven't heard the term 'whump' in so long. This thing sort of wrote itself, kept the lyrics in mind at the start before spiraling off on a tangent.

 

_“The last thing I heard was you whispering goodbye_

_And then I heard you flatline…”_

**_–_ ** [ **_Not Gonna Die by Skillet_ ** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwnSl4N_1J8)

 

_“Bite him! **Bite him!** ”_

_“I- I can’t!  It’s wro-”_

_“If you don’t Bite him, he’ll die!  He’ll die just like your precious Allison!  He’ll die because you refuse to get off your goddamn pedestal and-”_

_“He didn’t give permission!  It’s wrong!”_

_“He **can’t** give permission **because he’s dying!**   Get over yourself, McCall-”_

_“Pe’er?”_

_“Hey, hey sweetheart, hey, look at me, I’m here.”_

_The pool of blood beneath them grows ever bigger, soaking into the forest ground into Peter’s jeans, invading every one of his senses in a way that only heightens his panic with every passing second._

_“’m sor- ’m sorry, ’m s’ry-”_

_“It’s fine, don’t talk, the ambulance will be here soon, just- just stay with me okay?  Stay with me.  Scott!  Please!”_

_“I- Stiles?  Do you- Do you want the Bite?”_

_“…”_

_“Stiles, darling?  He needs an answer.”_

_“…I- yeah.  Yeah.  I’ll- I’ll get t’stay with you… that way, right?”_

_“Yes, yes, of course.  Scott, do it!  Scott!  What are you waiting for?!”_

_“…If he dies from the Bite, I’ll- I’ll have killed him-”_

_“You’ll kill him anyway if you don’t Bite him! **Scott!** ”_

_The distant wail of sirens split the air.  Relief dawns on the True Alpha’s face and he takes a step back.  A step away._

_“He’ll be fine now.  The hospital will-”_

_Stiles draws a single shuddering breath, death rattling in his lungs, bright crimson spilling over his lips like poppies when he coughs on the exhale, his insides – now halfway outside – quivering with every twitch and tremor._

_“Stiles?  Stiles!”_

_Delicate eyelashes flutter with effort.  Bloodstained fingers go limp in Peter’s hands._

_“I’ll kill you McCall.  Stiles dies, I’ll rip your throat out myself.”_

_“I’m not gonna-_

_risk killing him!_

_Why do you care-_

_a-_

_ny-_

_wa-_

 

Peter jerks awake, claws embedded in his mattress, fangs already bared with the desire to hunt, to kill, to tear his prey apart.

His heart is racing as he sits up, ignoring the rips in his bedding, the way he has all the other ones from previous nightmare-drenched sleep.

His alarm clock beeps, a steady _wake-up, wake-up, wake-up_ , until Peter smacks a hand on it.  More often than not these days, he wakes up before it goes off.  He suspects that it’s due – in some part – to his subconscious not liking the fact that the damn thing sounds like a heart monitor.

And he’s heard enough of that over the past two years.

He gets up, gets changed, gets ready for the day.  He eats a half-hearted breakfast of cereal because Stiles would scold him otherwise.

Then he leaves for the hospital.

 

* * *

 

“Peter!  Morning!”  Stiles greets the moment Peter steps into the room, and Peter feels himself relax.  It’s a good day today.

“Good morning, Stiles,” He wrinkles his nose at the contents of the cafeteria tray – uneaten – on the bedside table before producing the paper bag in his hands with a flourish, opening it to give Stiles a peek.

“Chocolate scone!”  Stiles perks up, even while a grin lights up his face.  “So unhealthy.  Melissa would disapprove.”

“What Melissa doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Peter reasons, taking a seat in the plastic chair beside Stiles’ bed.

Stiles obviously agrees because he falls on the food like a starving wolf.

“This is why I keep you around,” Stiles moans around a mouthful of scone.

“I’m honoured,” Peter retorts dryly.  “Elevated to errand boy – I have reached the pinnacle of my existence.”

Stiles splutters out a laugh, almost choking, but he swallows, wipes his fingers on a napkin, and then reaches out and takes Peter’s hand.

“I also appreciate you for your sense of humour and stalking tendencies,” He says solemnly, eyes gleaming with mirth as he adds, “And your dick.  I appreciate your dick too.”

“Mm, I do have a very nice dick,” Peter agrees, and he watches with an indulgent smile as his mate snorts and tries to hide another much more exasperated grin.

It’s a good day.

 

* * *

 

“Stiles?”  Peter frowns at the empty bed, anxiety automatically making his heart skip unpleasantly, and it takes a tense moment for him to locate his mate sprawled on the ground on the other side of the bed.  “Stiles!  You shouldn’t be-”

“Don’t touch me!”  Stiles spits out, arms trembling as he attempts to haul himself into a sitting position at the very least.  “I don’t need your help!”

Peter falls back and closes his eyes for a second.

It’s one of those days then.

He opens his eyes again and almost wishes he doesn’t have to, because it makes his wolf howl at the sight of what their mate has lost, because Peter wasn’t fast enough.  The muscles in Stiles’ arms and upper body visibly strain as Stiles tries to drag himself to the wheelchair that’s rolled a few feet away, probably when he first fell.

His legs on the other hand, well, they don’t so much as twitch.  They lie lifelessly, uselessly, horribly limp against the cold floor, and even without touching Stiles, Peter can smell the physical hurt in the air.

 _Paralyzed from the hips down_ , the doctors said, long before Stiles came out of his coma.  _With little chance of recovery, and he’ll have to deal with chronic pain as well, probably for life._

The wheelchair almost flips forward right onto Stiles when Stiles puts too much pressure on the footrest in an attempt to use it to hoist himself into the chair.  Only Peter’s timely intervention prevents the whole thing from toppling onto Stiles’ body, so much more fragile these days.

“I _said_ I don’t need your help!”  Stiles snarls, eyes wild with bitter rage, but his voice cracks on the last word, and it almost sounds like a sob.

Peter swallows back the pathetic whine clogging his own throat.  Instead, he sets the wheelchair a ways away before crouching down and catching Stiles’ chin in one hand.

“Stiles-”

“ _Don’t-_ ”

“Please,” Peter murmurs quietly, and when he sees the fury towards his own helplessness abate ever so slightly in Stiles’ expression, he slides his hand along the boy’s jawline before curling it around the back of Stiles’ neck in a warm, reassuring grip.  “I don’t like to see you hurt.  Let me help.”

“ _Hurt_ ,” Stiles repeats on a ragged laugh that holds no humour, but his body sags, and when Peter shifts his weight to scoop the boy into his arms, Stiles doesn’t protest again.

Peter settles him into the wheelchair, carefully wrapping him up in a few blankets and a coat.

“Do you want to go outside?”  He asks, already knowing the answer, but the question draws out a brief flicker of happiness that washes away the exhaustion and cynicism for a moment, and while it doesn’t last, at least it brings Stiles’ temperament back to something more content and resigned than angry and burning what little energy he’s built back up since that near fatal battle in the woods.

It’s one of those days.  But it could be worse.

 

* * *

 

Because then there are days when Stiles sits by the window, blank-eyed and empty, not catatonic the way Peter was for six years but retreating into his own head all the same for hours on end, unresponsive to any sort of outside stimulus.  Some doctors call it depression.  Others put it down to a lasting consequence of the head injury and subsequent two-year coma Stiles endured.

Peter doesn’t see that it matters much either way.  His mate isn’t in any pain, aside from the ache in his legs, and that he tries to take away as much as he can.

He doesn’t know if the Bite would cure him now or just make things worse.  Disregarding the risk of the Bite not taking now that it’s no longer a life-or-death issue, brain injuries are difficult things to predict, and if becoming a werewolf doesn’t fix Stiles’ legs, Peter doesn’t want to know what Stiles might do.  It’s the only reason he hasn’t gone out and tracked down an Alpha to kill yet.  That, and he doesn’t want to leave Stiles for any length of time, not when he was still in a coma, and certainly not now that he’s awake and unable to walk and getting lost in his own head every few days.

So on days like today, when Stiles’ gaze is vacant and he gives no indication of noticing Peter settling down for the day at his side, Peter retrieves one of the paperbacks from the nightstand, bookmarked at the paragraph they stopped at last time this happened, and begins to read out loud.

Sometimes, Stiles hears him.  Sometimes he doesn’t.  But so long as Stiles knows he isn’t alone in the times he _can_ hear, Peter will consider the effort well worth it.

Stiles doesn’t come back until the sun begins to set, when Peter is in the process of draining the worst of the pain from Stiles’ left knee.  Scars crisscross the pale flesh from calf to thigh, an eternal reminder of Theo’s final betrayal right before Peter ripped his head off and left the chimera a gory mess on the forest floor.

The Sheriff refused to arrest him for it.  Likewise, when Peter threw Scott into a wall the first time the boy – home from college – tried to visit after Stiles woke up from his coma and, within the first ten minutes, somehow managed to squeeze in a hug, well-wishes,  _and_ the implication of how it was the right decision not to give Stiles the Bite since Stiles was alive and finally awake and okay again, the furious Sheriff only told Melissa in no uncertain terms that Scott wasn’t to come back unless Stiles asked for him.

Scott complained.  Melissa yanked him out by his ear.

“ _It shouldn’t be too hard, Scott,_ ” Her voice hard as granite and – in a rare turn of events – directed at her son.  “ _You’ve done it for the past two years._ ”  Because she took coma patient recovery very seriously, and _Stiles’_ recovery even more seriously.

Peter would have felt more vindictive satisfaction over that bit of karma if Stiles didn’t go ashen-faced at Scott’s words, dark bags under his eyes from having just spent the past week with little to no sleep due to the sheer agony his legs were in.  The drugs weren’t working very well anymore by that point, and Peter almost passes out from taking too much of the pain every day, right up until Stiles literally shouts for his father and tells the Sheriff in no uncertain terms to march Peter home at gunpoint if he has to, and make him stay there for a full twelve hours before he comes back.

It was touching, but Peter still had to be dragged out of the hospital.  The Sheriff probably wouldn’t have succeeded if Peter wasn’t as weak as a kitten, dizzy and barely conscious with the pain he took.

The pain today is a lot milder, but when Peter glances up into eyes that hold a much sharper awareness in them now, all he can smell is misery.  “Stiles?”

Stiles touches the back of his hand like he’s unsure of his welcome.  Peter laces their fingers together before Stiles can retrieve them.

For a long minute, neither of them speaks, Peter waiting for Stiles, Stiles putting together whatever he wants to say.  He’s a lot quieter than he used to be.

“You shouldn’t have to stay,” Stiles mutters at last, and Peter sighs because this isn’t the first time he’s said something along those lines, although it is perhaps the first time he’s said it so baldly.  “You shouldn’t have to put up with-” He gestures at himself with his free hand in a wholly defeated manner.  “-this.  I mean, I’m not getting any better.”

Peter contemplates their joined hands for a moment, absently brushing a thumb back and forth over the delicate knuckles that stand out far too starkly under his skin.  Stiles should eat more.

“I don’t ‘have to’ do anything, Stiles,” Peter finally says, looking up again to meet the boy’s gaze and hold it, refusing to let Stiles avert his eyes.  “You know that.  You are not a chore to me.  You are not an obligation.”  He brings Stiles’ hand up and presses his lips to the back of it, to his fingers, to his pulse.  “You are my mate, and I love you.  I won’t say it isn’t hard sometimes because you wouldn’t believe me anyway, but no relationship exists without some measure of difficulty at times, and I assure you, staying with you is a pleasure.  Believe me, sweetheart,” He reaches up and cups Stiles’ cheek in one palm.  “I don’t want to be anywhere but here with you.”

Stiles’ legs don’t work, so when he lunges forward out of his wheelchair, he’s bound to crumple to the ground.  Peter catches him though, as he always will, before bundling him into a hug, and he can barely remember the last time Stiles clutched him back so fiercely, or even allowed himself to be held like this, like something precious instead of something to be pitied or spurned.

The doubts will creep back in.  A few of them probably still linger at this very moment.  And Peter will have to banish them again when they become too much, when Stiles stares at his legs and sees nothing but a cripple, a burden.

But for now, Peter thinks they’re alright.  They’ll make it through together.  And even if Stiles never walks another day of his life, Peter will still be here.  He’ll walk enough for the both of them, and he’ll take Stiles with him, every step of the way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Please leave a review on your way out.**


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